Wood burning stoves have become increasingly popular in recent years. Such stoves have proved to be practical for heating individual rooms, small homes, mobile homes, and other structures. In many areas wood is available at a far lower cost than conventional fossil fuels such as oil and gas, and wood stoves have proved to be particularly popular in those areas.
The wood stoves which are presently available have certain disadvantages. A major disadvantage is that wood stoves do not maintain as even a temperature as do furnaces burning other fuels. Another disadvantage is that combustion is incomplete in a typical wood stove. As a result creosote and other pollutants pass unburned through the stove and are discharged into the atmosphere. A third disadvantage is that some of the products of incomplete combustion, notably creosote, collect in the chimney where they constitute a fire hazard.
There exists a need for a wood burning stove which has the attributes of safety, evenness of heat output regardless of the amount of fuel present, and freedom from air pollution. These attributes are taken for granted in large furnaces which burn coal, oil or gas, but have not been attained heretofore in wood stoves.